Professor Phillip Buckner

Phillip Buckner received his BA from the University of
Toronto and his PhD from the University of London and then returned to Canada
to teach Canadian history at the University of New Brunswick, where he rose to
the rank of full professor. He helped to establish the University of New
Brunswick as the centre for the study of Atlantic Canada, creating and for many
years editing the scholarly journal Acadiensis: Journal of the History of the
Atlantic Region and establishing Acadiensis Press, the major scholarly
press within Atlantic Canada. He wrote extensively on the subject of regional
studies in Canada and edited half a dozen books dealing with the history of
Atlantic Canada. He also created and
edited for the Canadian Historical Association a series of booklets on the
history of Canada's ethnic groups. In 1992-1993 he was elected President of the
Canadian Historical Association. He taught for one year in the Canadian Studies
programme at Birkbeck College at the University of London and was a visiting
professor of Canadian Studies for one year at Tskuba University in Japan.

In 1999
Professor Buckner took an early retirement from the University of New Brunswick
and was awarded by the University the rank of Professor Emeritus. He moved to
London, establishing and acting for over a decade as the Director of the
Canadian Studies programme at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and
assisting with the establishment of the Canadian Studies programme at the
Institute for the Study of the Americas. Professor Buckner's main scholarly
interest has always been the relationship of Canada with the British Empire. He
wrote a book and a number of articles on this subject while in Canada and this
became the main focus of his scholarly activities when he moved to London. He
became a strong proponent of what came to be known as British World Studies,
publishing a number of articles on this theme, especially on the topic of royal
tours to the colonies, helping to organize conferences on this theme in Cape
Town, Calgary and Auckland, and editing Canada and the End of Empire
(2004), Rediscovering the British World (2005) and Canada and the
British World: Culture, Migration and Identity (2006). He also edited the
volume on Canada and the British Empire (2008) in the companion series
for the Oxford History of the British Empire. His most recent publication in
2012 was the two-volume collection of essays he edited with John Reid on Revisiting
1759: The Conquest of Canada in Historical Perspective and Remembering
1759: The Conquest of Canada in Historical Memory. He is currently working
on a study of Canadian Historical Memory and the War of 1812 and on the
creation of the Canadian Confederation in 1864-1867.